The Kids Will Never Be Alright
by collectcall
Summary: Before Cammie, before Zach, before the Circle of Cavan—there was the original generation of Gallagher girls and Blackthorne boys, brought together for an exchange in 1986. Two schools, one year. Add a dash of espionage, and you've got a recipe for chaos.
1. blackthorne

**hi! so once i read gg5 (which was amazing), i wanted to write a pre-cammie story - and here it is. it focuses on catherine (zach's mom), rachel, and abby's time at gallagher during an exchange with blackthorne (with solomon and zach's dad). this was as canon as i could make it with the information given in the books. hope you like it :)**

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><p>"This is pathetic," Rachel Cameron sighed, as her malachite green eyes glanced calmly around the clamorous Dining Hall of Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women. Her dark hair was pulled back, as always, into a thick, neat braid that nearly reached her waist; her navy blue socks were pulled up just below her knees. She had on small diamond earrings, a starched school uniform, and was very pretty. In fact, most people who could've seen her would've assumed she was the bored, rich, snobby daughter to an affluent businessman or CEO.<p>

Most people would've been wrong.

Most people wouldn't have known that those carat diamond studs could've set off an explosion large enough to topple the Empire State Building. Most people wouldn't have known that she wore her hair in that braid as an advantage to herself during her Protection & Enforcement class, where not only breaking the bones of other students was allowed, but _encouraged_. Most people wouldn't have known that she, and everybody else who attended Gallagher Academy, was a spy in training.

(And if somebody did, in fact, know that, they either had the right amount of clearance [Level Three or higher], or were lying face down in a ditch in Siberia. Dead.)

Next to Rachel, a girl around the same age nodded in agreement. "You'd think these Blackthorne boys all look like Tom Cruise or something," Catherine Hadley yawned, running a thin, china-plate white hand through her bluntly cut auburn hair carelessly.

"Just because you've had six boyfriends in the past month, Cate," grumbled a younger girl, shaking her hands vigorously to dry off the freshly applied nail polish on her fingers. She was visibly more made up than the two other girls, with slightly smudged eyeliner and candy pink lipgloss. "And Rachel, you wouldn't care about the Blackthorne boys even if they _did_ look like Tom Cruise."

"That's because Blackthorne boys are nothing to care about, Abby," Rachel shrugged. Her sister raised a skeptical eyebrow. "It's just another spy school, like us, Abs. But for boys."

"Exactly," Abby said, matter-of-fact. She put one hand on her hip. "Guys, please, be more excited otherwise I can't talk to you anymore. _Boys_ go to Blackthorne. When was the last time we had boys at this school? Never. We'll be eating with them, taking classes with them—"

"Dating them?" Cate asked, smirking. "Sweetie, teenage boys in general are hedonistic, self-absorbed, and stupid. Spy boys?" She shook her head. "Don't even think about it."

Abby rolled her green eyes, which matched her sister's perfectly. "Olivia Miller said Blackthorne boys—"

"I wouldn't trust Olivia Miller farther than I could throw her," Cate snorted.

"You could probably throw her pretty far," Rachel pointed out.

Cate tilted her head to one side. "True. I still wouldn't trust her, though." She smirked again. "Anyway, we're not talking about Olivia Miller. We're talking about Blackthorne boys. And the simple truth is, whatever you've heard about them, they've probably heard the same things about us. And when they come, I can guarantee that everybody will be sorely disappointed."

"Tell that to entire student body," Abby replied, and she had a point: all around the Dining Hall, peppy underclassmen were busy doing each other's hair, applying lipstick, spritzing perfume on their necks, and reviewing flirty conversation starters in Swedish. Even the seniors were examining their reflections in compact mirrors (that also doubled as a fingerprint-based population database), begging their friends with concealer to cover bruises sustained from P&E on their knuckles.

"Let me reiterate my previous statement," Rachel declared, gesturing around the Hall, "This is pathetic."

Cate laughed as Abby shrugged and left the girls to sit at her sophomore table with a few other students who automatically leaned over excitedly—probably to gossip more about Blackthorne. "They still have the notices up everywhere, as if we're not going to realize fifteen kids have shown up at our high-security campus," she said incredulously, pulling a taped flier down from the wall and examining it.

**ATTENTION, GALLAGHER STUDENTS!**

_The Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women will be graciously welcoming our brother school, Blackthorne Institute, into our halls for the rest of the year. During this time, the Blackthorne students will dine in our Dining Hall, study the our curriculum, and sleep on our campus. We hope to encourage positive relations with Blackthorne, and we expect nothing less than the best behavior during these months. Please use this unique opportunity to truly honor Gillian Gallagher by displaying hospitality, respect, and intellect._

_The Blackthorne students will arrive on Monday, October 5th, 1985, at nine o'clock in the morning._

_—Headmistress Pierce_

The girls sat down at their senior table, which was all the way to the left, joining their classmates.

"Aren't you guys excited?" Charlotte Quinn, an easily-impressed blonde senior, exclaimed loudly when the two girls sat down. Rachel could, unfortunately, smell her heavy, flowery perfume, even though there were at least three girls between them, and coughed lightly. "Actual boys are coming here! In nineteen minutes and thirty-four seconds!"

"Not particularly," Cate answered, as Rachel studied, uninterested, for a Cultures & Assimilation pop quiz that Madame Dabney had hinted at on Friday.

"Well, of course you wouldn't be," Charlotte sighed, patting her hair uncertainly and resting her soft chin on the back of her delicate hand. "You've had..._experience_ with boys before, haven't you, Cate? And Rachel doesn't care about anything other than her grades and reputation, I know."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Rachel asked, frowning.

"Nothing, just, well, you're a bit of a stickler for the rules, aren't you?" Charlotte shrugged, casually eating some eggs. "I don't think I could really see you with a Blackthorne boy. Boys don't like girls who don't, you know, put out, right? You're not even wearing make-up right now—don't you care that fifteen boys are going to see you with hair all flat like that?"

"Flat like—" Rachel began, before Cate cut her off with a simple, "Charlotte, shut up."

The blonde shrugged again and turned to talk to another girl.

"She does know I'm at the top of our P&E class, right?" Rachel said, slightly offended at Charlotte's remark, but not really. "I was the only senior to perfect the Aleksandrov Maneuver during first semester."

"I think she knows you're at the top of every single one of your classes," Cate told her comfortingly, and Rachel rolled her eyes, returning to her Cultures textbook. "Plus, makeup would clog your pores and give you blackheads." She said it a bit louder, so Charlotte could hear, and Rachel suppressed a grin.

A whine of feedback erupted from the podium at the front of the Dining Hall as Headmistress Pierce tapped the microphone. Headmistress Pierce was, in Rachel's opinion, the ideal sort of headmistress: kind, but strict; understanding, forgiving, but firm. Getting on her bad side was terrible, and it was impossible to get on her good side—but most of the girls loved her. Rachel supposed looking after one hundred teenage girls everyday could give those types of qualities to a person.

"Attention, everybody," Pierce greeted sharply. "As all of you know, we will be receiving some very special guests in approximately ten minutes."

A hush spread throughout the Dining Hall.

"Remember, we are to take this opportunity to form bonds—"

"—you know what kind of bonds Charlotte wants to form," Cate murmured under her breath. Charlotte rolled her eyes, but Rachel grinned as Pierce kept talking.

"—that will last you not only through this year, but through the rest of your careers in covert or research operations. Remember, the boys you meet today are the people you will share missions with in five, ten years. But before we introduce them to you, a few words from their Headmaster, Dr. Steven Sanders!"

The Dining Hall doors burst open, behind which a very stout man with light brown hair that was slowly receding back in his head, a tweed suit, and a rather uncouth smile. He made way towards the podium and began speaking, but barely any girls paid attention as he stammered and gripped the podium tightly until Headmistress Pierce took the stage again, looking rather unimpressed, but faking a big grin. "At Gallagher, we often consider ourselves a family. However, the same can be said for all spies, all over the world. Therefore, as a family, we'd love to extend a very warm welcome to family. Girls, the Blackthorne Institute for Boys!" She clapped lightly.

Then the doors to the Dining Hall burst open, revealing exactly fifteen boys.

It seemed as if the entire Hall had stopped breathing, as one hundred pairs of eyes turned towards the entrance, examining the group. First glances told them the school colors were a nearly skin-tone shade of yellow and dark grey (although they weren't wearing uniforms like the girls were); second glances showed that all the boys had the same standard haircut—short, not quite at a military buzzcut, but short enough to be noticeable.

Most of the girls sat, frozen, with hands clasped tightly in their laps as they realized that _real, live, boys_ were standing in the same room as them; some had the sense to attempt welcoming smiles. The more conspicuous ones began to murmur over their looks ("the one to the left is _hot_" "that tall one has nice arms"), but in general, for the first minute, the Dining Hall was completely standstill.

Except for Rachel, whose fork dropped out of her hand and onto her plate with a clatter; one hand covered her mouth, as if preventing a scream, the other gripped very tightly onto her knife as she stared across the room to the fifteen boys who all stood a bit awkwardly at the entrance of the Dining Hall. All except one—blond hair, clear Paris green eyes, impassive expression—who was staring directly at her.

"Shit."

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><p><strong>please review and tell me your thoughts?<strong>


	2. impressions

**hey! so i wanted to clear this up: matthew won't be in most of this story, if at all, because in CMH rachel said he didn't go to blackthorne. also, you meet zach's dad this chapter ;) there's another note about him at the end, but first...enjoy! sorry for the wait.**

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><p>It took three whole seconds for Rachel to move again, which in the field would've meant sure death. However, since she was still a spy-in-training and therefore not in the field, she was very much alive, much to her dismay.<p>

"Shit," she muttered again, squeezing her eyes shut. The image of a boy burned in her eyelids, and when she opened them again, she carefully made sure to not look in the direction of the Dining Hall's doors.

"What?" Cate asked, her dark eyes flicking between the Blackthorne boys and Rachel.

"Nothing," the brunette replied.

"That was convincing," Cate remarked, raising an eyebrow. At the best of times, Cate's superb intuition—even for a spy—was probably one of her better qualities, but in a time like this, it was just annoying. "Whatever. Check out those boys, though. I'm not gonna lie, I'm a little underwhelmed—but I think if you give them a few weeks to grow out their hair, maybe beat them up a couple times in P&E, I could definitely imagine spending an entire school year with them."

She grinned mischievously.

Rachel forced a small laugh as Cate shrugged, "I guess not every first impression is perfect, huh?"

_Well, some are_, Rachel thought, reflecting back to a particular night in Monaco. It had been the middle of July. There had been a boy. He was blond.

Rachel shook herself out of her daze before she cautiously chanced a glance towards the Blackthorne boys, who were still standing in a frozen mass next to the Dining Hall doors.

Headmistress Pierce stood up again.

"Now, girls. I'm sure you're excited to meet your new classmates, however they do need a chance to settle in to their dormitories. The Blackthorne boys will be joining you in time for your first class, so don't fret—and remember, show our guests the utmost hospitality, especially during these few initial days," Pierce announced, staring directly at Cate, "or there will be dire consequences."

"She hates me," Cate sighed.

"Well, you have gotten in trouble for breaking the rules more times than the rest of us combined," Rachel reminded her. "And by 'us', I mean the entire school."

"Yeah, because she hates me," Cate replied. "The first time I met her, she was already side-eyeing me."

"That's because you called her a crazy bitch and kicked her desk over," Rachel pointed out. "I was there, remember?"

"Well, she'd just told me that I was going to be going to a school for spies! I was bound to be a bit surprised," Cate muttered, bitterly taking a sip of orange juice.

The boys started to shuffle around. Most looked uncomfortable in their positions, which was pretty understandable, considering a hundred teenage girls were staring at them. Well, ninety-nine: Rachel was still doing her best to avoid looking towards the front of the room.

Cate sighed as, one by one, the Blackthorne boys filed out of the Dining Hall. She shook her head, "God, first impressions suck."

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><p>The rest of breakfast flashed by at a frighteningly quick pace, and suddenly, Rachel found herself walking to CoveOps—the first class of the day—with trepidation.<p>

This trepidation was not shared with Cate, who stopped halfway down Sublevel 3, searching her bag frantically for her CoveOps notebook. As Rachel waited for her friend, she caught snippets of conversation from a few of her classmates. One of the most intelligent girls in Rachel's class (and the world), Anuva Gupta, chatted excitedly Jennifer Ramsey to about whether they taught particle physics at Blackthorne, and wondered if any of the Blackthorne boys had also won any Fields Medals.

"Dammit, I think I left it in my dorm," Cate groaned, emptying out her backpack on the floor in frustration before stuffing everything back into her bag. "Oh God, Richter's going to kill me when I'm late _again_."

"Do you want me to go get it? I've never been late," Rachel mused. "And to be honest, I think Professor Richter likes me a lot more than he likes you."

"Probably," Cate said. "It's fine, I can get it, screw Richter. I'll catch up with you later."

The redhead disappeared down the hall, leaving Rachel alone as she walked into the classroom, which was roughly half-full with gossiping girls. Ignoring them all, Rachel plopped down into her seat and pulled out her Cultures textbook, burying her nose in _Chapter Two: French Table Settings_ until the flowery perfume of Charlotte Quinn interrupted her studies.

"Hey, Rach," Charlotte greeted.

"Did you just call me 'Rach'?" Rachel asked in reply, not looking up from her textbook.

Charlotte ignored her and sat next to Rachel. The desks in the CoveOps classroom were meant to hold two people to encourage peer engagement, but Rachel leaned away irritably as Charlotte's blonde curls bounced into view. "You okay? I saw you at breakfast, you looked like you were about to throw up!"

"I'm fine," Rachel said smoothly. "It was probably your perfume, to be quite honest, Charlotte."

Charlotte ignored her again and placed her head on the back of her hand, leaning forward on her elbow wistfully. "Boys are funny, aren't they? I still can't believe we're going to be spending the rest of the year with them."

"You better start believing, Miss Quinn," a deep voice said. Rachel looked up. Professor Richter, tall, broad, and gray-haired, was passing through the desks towards the front of the classroom. "I believe our first Blackthorne guest is about to arrive."

"Oh! Well, bye Rachel! I'll talk to you soon," Charlotte squealed, hopping off her stool and going back to her regular table near the front of the class.

"Please don't," Rachel muttered, although she couldn't help it—like the rest of the girls in the classroom, she turned towards the classroom door, sneaking eager glances between her textbook and the thick door.

Finally, the door creaked open a bit, first revealing a leg and a hand, before a fully formed Blackthorne boy stepped through. Rachel immediately dropped her head back into her book. It was him—or, well, it was _him_. A few blurry memories of a warm coastline and frozen lemonade swam through her mind, before Rachel found herself refocusing on the words in front of her.

_In modern-day France,_

Up in the front of the classroom, Professor Richter was talking in his loud, gravelly voice. Even though Rachel was staring at her textbook (and her desk, and her shoes, and her pen, and Heather Tran's fuschia backpack, and basically everywhere except the front of the classroom), she could feel _him_ staring.

_ a casual dinner table setting_

"I'm Joseph Solomon," a different voice said.

"Say hello, class," Professor Richter ordered.

"Hello, Joseph Solomon," the class chimed.

_will include silverware placed_

"Actually, most people just call me Joe, Joe is fine." The class giggled. "We have a Covert Operations class at Blackthorne, too, so hopefully I won't be too behind." More giggles. "But if I am, you all look very...adept at operating covertly, so it should be fine."

"Gallagher is very lucky to have you, Mr. Solomon," Richter said. "Now, I was informed I'd be receiving two new students. Would you happen to know where your classmate is?"

"He's probably on his way, he doesn't like being late," Joe answered. Somehow, even that had warranted a few chuckles from around the class.

_in chronological order_

"Miss Cameron!" Richter called.

Rachel looked up, her eyes sliding over Joe and landing directly on Richter. She held a very steady gaze as she asked, "Yes, sir?"

"While I appreciate the amount of effort you put into your studies, this is an inappropriate time to do so. You are disrespecting our guest," Richter said. Rachel flicked the quickest glance over towards the blond teenager. He was staring at her unflinchingly. "Is there anything you'd like to say to Mr. Solomon?"

_Actually, there are a lot of things I'd like to say to Mr. Solomon_, Rachel thought, as she noncommittally said, "Sorry."

"And where's Miss Hadley? Did she sleep in again?"

"Cate forgot her notebook, she's getting it right now," Rachel answered. She realized she'd been wrong when she'd said Richter liked her more than Cate—Richter hated everybody equally. "She'll be here at any moment. Um, don't mark her absent."_  
><em>

"Well, she's late so often, I might as well," Richter said. "Mr. Solomon, kindly take the empty seat next to Miss Cameron."

Rachel suddenly coughed loudly. "Excuse me, sir? I don't think that's a good idea...sir."

"Miss Hadley has never faced the consequence of tardiness in this classroom before," Richter said. "Now she will, and she'll hopefully learn a lesson from it."

"You're kidding," Rachel muttered, looking around the classroom for support. Unfortunately, she mainly found equal parts of surprise, amusement, and jealousy. In a louder voice, "Just give her a few more minutes, she'll get here. Sir."

Richter didn't reply—the conversation was clearly over—and instead gestured over towards the empty seat next to Rachel. "Go ahead and take a seat, Mr. Solomon," Richter said, before turning around to face the blackboard.

"Jesus Christ," Rachel groaned, staring at Joe as he slowly traipsed to the back of the classroom, where she sat, contemplating what she could do. She could fake an illness (too obvious), or spontaneously scream obscenities (she could claim it was stress—she was at the top of every one of her classes, after all), or throw her textbook at Joe in such a way that it would pierce his jugular, effectively ending his life and preventing him from sitting next to her (too bloody. Also, she was fond of her textbook).

But eventually, the blond boy made it to her table and clambered onto the stool, with no action on Rachel's part.

"Rachel?"

No answer.

"Rachel."

"Sorry, you must have me confused with someone else," Rachel said.

The blond grinned like it was a joke, even though it wasn't. Rachel thoughtfully weighed the pros and cons of breaking his arms before he spoke again. "I don't think you can really get away with that right now," he replied.

Rachel sucked in a deep breath. "No, I suppose I can't," she shrugged. There was small pause. "It's so weird. For the longest time, I thought your name was Josef Solberg and you were a Swedish exchange student living in France. I mean, you forgot to mention you went to an American spy school."_  
><em>

"Ditto," Joe replied. "I guess we can both lie pretty well."

"What are the chances," Rachel said.

"Well, my dad always claimed spies can find other spies under any circumstance," Joe said. "It's a survival thing. Birds of a feather."

"Flock together," Rachel murmured.

"Exactly," Joe affirmed. "You aren't mad, are you?"

Rachel turned to face him completely, for the first time. "Why would I be mad?"

"So you're not," Joe observed.

"There's no reason for me to be," Rachel said. "Is there?"

Joe shook his head, a bit warily. "No. There isn't."

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><p>Cate rushed down the stairs hurriedly, her CoveOps notebook in one hand, the other in her auburn hair as she pushed it out of her face. As she nearly flew down the last flight, she checked her watch—<em>late<em>—before a teen-boy shaped figure walked into her.

"Asshole," Cate snapped, her notebook slipping out of her hands and falling onto the ground. She crouched down to retrieve it, but before she could reach for it, the boy standing in front of her plucked it off the floor and handed it to her. Even more annoyed than before, Cate straightened and snatched her notebook out of his hands. "What's your—"

She stopped suddenly, staring at the boy who was looking first at her notebook, then at her. He had dark hair, slightly longer than the rest of the Blackthorne boys' she'd seen, with deep set blue-gray eyes, and soft cheek hollows.

In short, he was way hotter than Cate had been expecting.

With one eyebrow raised, the boy remarked, "I thought Gallagher Girls were supposed to be the nice ones."

Cate made a skeptical face, examining the state of her notebook. It was already pretty ratty, with loose pages and torn edges, but she was pretty sure it looked slightly worse than usual. In her mind, Cate blamed it on the boy standing in front of her.

"We're _supposed_ to be," Cate replied, shrugging as she carelessly stuffed her notebook into her backpack. "But there are exceptions."

The boy looked at her, mildly amused.

"Fine," Cate huffed, after a few seconds of heavy silence, in which she became kind of guilty for calling him an asshole. After all, she didn't even _like_ taking notes in CoveOps. "I'll be nice, but only for a minute. There are no classrooms where you were headed, so you're obviously lost. Where do you need to be?"

"Covert Operations," the boy answered, after a second of thinking. "With Richter, I believe?"

"You're a senior."

"Correct." The boy looked at Cate. "Are you a senior?"

"They really teach you how to observe at Blackthorne, don't they?" Cate deadpanned, stuffing her notebook into her backpack carelessly. "Whatever. What's your name?"

"Sebastian...Seb," the boy answered, with a hint of a smile. "Seb Goode."

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><p><strong>so, zach's dad! basically, two things:<strong>

**-catherine and sebastian are supposed represent the two different sides of zach. zach has a lot of personality—he's sweet and sarcastic and mysterious and quiet and intuitive and strong and intense. so cate is the sarcastic/mysterious side, and sebastian is the quiet/strong side.**

**-sebastian's name. i wanted something aristocratic, like zachary, that shortened into something simple, like seb. also, i didn't want the name to be too common like matt/joe, and it had to sound good with goode (haha). a few other names i tried (christian, thomas, anthony) just didn't sound that great? i also adore sebastian stan. :)**

**other than that, the FULL STORY behind rachel and joe will be revealed next chapter, as well as the personalities of seb and joe (and more abby)! and sorry again for the (5 month?) wait!**


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